Polar Bears

Before Natural World Safaris, the brand was split into three, including World Bear Safaris. We have kept all of our specialist knowledge from our World Bear Safari days and continue to design journeys into the natural world to see these magnificent creatures in the wild, including the King of the Arctic, the Polar Bear.

Polar bears are extremely intelligent; having adapted behaviour for catching seals and smashing open ice blocks to remove frozen fish. They have even been observed piling up plastic piping just to knock it down later for the fun of it. Contrary to popular belief, polar bears have never been seen covering their nose whilst stalking prey.

Polar bears are key figures in the cultural and spiritual lives of the indigenous Arctic people; known in Greenland as ‘Tornassuk - the master of helping spirits’ and ‘Nanuk’ to the Inuits. Related to the extinct Irish brown bear, they are thought to have split between 400,000 and 2 million years ago, adapting to a narrower niche in the Arctic. As the world’s largest land carnivore, polar bears have adapted remarkably well to their icy Arctic environment where temperatures can plunge down to -45 degrees; their characteristic silhouette of a long neck and narrow Roman nose assisting them in seizing prey from holes. Skin is black with a layer of fat beneath it measuring up to 4.5 inches in thickness and paws are up to 12 inches across, distributing their immense weight over thinning ice and acting as paddles and rudders whilst swimming.

Polar Bear Conservation

While population estimates are difficult, some 20-25,000 bears are thought to exist throughout the Arctic. Although the hunting of polar bears is restricted to indigenous peoples in Greenland and Alaska and banned completely in Svalbard and Russia, Canada actually issues hunting quotas each year, meaning you can kill a bear yourself if you have the funds and the inclination. Despite this, hunting is not a major threat to the survival of the polar bear.

By far the biggest threat to the polar bear is climate change. Research published by the University of Mexico in 2018 showed that an adult polar bear needs to consume the equivalent of at least one fully grown ringed seal every 10 days in order to survive; less ice means fewer hunting opportunities, resulting in starving bears across the Arctic. These bears are being forced to either head miles from land on pieces of drift ice in search of the more solid pack ice – their prime hunting ground – or tough it out on land. The latter of those choices means more and more bears are heading to towns in search of food, bringing them into closer contact with humans than ever before. This of course brings its own risks – the number of bears being shot for being too close to human settlements has increased dramatically in recent years. For the bears who head north with the receding ice, their shrinking territory makes for difficult hunting.